Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · October 9, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 40

How Baptists View It.

A CORRESPONDENT of the Christian Index, a Baptist paper of Atlanta, Georgia, has been criticising the position of that paper upon the educational question, and among other things, says:—

The Bible is not abolished, it cannot be, it is not even banished. — That the teachers can teach as much of the Bible as they please, provided they avoid dogmas upon which churches differ.

To this the Index makes reply as follows:—

Is he not laboring under a “strange misapprehension”?

The Bible and all religious exercises, are prohibited in the public schools of Atlanta, and we think this is practically true of all the schools in Georgia. In many States the use of the Bible in the public schools is prohibited by law. This is as it should be where the children of parents who entertain every imaginable phase of religious belief assemble in the same school.

A Christian has no right to force a Jew to listen to his interpretations of Scripture, neither has the Jew the right to force his interpretation of Scripture upon a Christian. So, of all other denominations entertaining radical differences of opinion. It is not our wish or purpose to compel the use of the Bible in the public school. As Baptists we are unalterably opposed to anything that looks like compulsion in matters of religion, or that gives the slightest countenance to the shortest step towards the union of Church and State.

The Bible and religion must of necessity be excluded from the public schools. Denominational schools are the only schools where the Bible can be used, and where religious instruction can be given without let or hindrance.

But our correspondent says, “The teachers in the public schools can teach as much of the Bible as they please, provided they avoid the dogmas upon

which churches differ.”

What does he mean by “dogmas”? It is fair to presume he means those doctrines taught by the various sects or denominations which constitute their cardinal differences.

Let us see how much of the Bible there will be left for one of the teachers in a public school to teach when all these are avoided. The Christian believes that Christ was the true Messiah. The Jew believes he was an impostor. The dogma of the Messiahship of Christ must be avoided.

The Trinitarian believes in the divinity of the Son, and his co-equality with the Father. The Unitarian believes that Jesus was a mere man. The dogma of the divinity of Christ must be avoided. The Baptist and the Presbyterian believe in the doctrine of election and final perseverance. The Methodist rejects both. The dogma of an effectual call must be avoided. Orthodox Christians believe that repentance and faith are essential to salvation. Universalists believe that all men will be saved whether they repent and believe or not. The dogmas of repentance and faith must be avoided. Baptists believe that nothing but immersion is baptism. Pedobaptists believe that rantism or something else will do. The dogma of baptism must be avoided. Baptists believe that regeneration is an essential qualification for church membership. Pedobaptists do not. The dogma of regeneration must be avoided.

So we might extend the list of so-called “dogmas” until every essential doctrine is eliminated from the Bible, leaving little else besides the fly-leaves and the lids.

And this is just the position that every Christian, and every Christian paper, should assume upon the question of the Bible in the public schools. The Book of books can properly have no place in schools supported by the State.